Did You Know...

Bill Ardolino reports from Iraq that President Bush held a conference with bloggers and embeds. Bill writes:

President Bush met with a group bloggers today in an almost hour-long discussion of the war on terror. Eight individuals attended the meeting in the White House, while Bill Roggio and I video conferenced in from Camp Victory in Baghdad. Bush commenced the event with his oft-stated thoughts on the overall importance and strategies in various fronts of the war, with a focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, and then opened up the format to questions and discussion. My question focused on how national political reconciliation will affect progress in the Anbar Province and Fallujah specifically, and the President’s answer honestly surprised me in its length, level of detail and grasp of events on the ground.

When one examines the challenges facing Iraq from the lowest level – via the perspective of Iraqis, junior enlisted, NCOs and officers in the conflict – it can often seem that any dysfunction might be abetted by American personnel at higher levels not being aware of, much less addressing, many of the problems. Given that the President of the United States had awareness of specifics about the strategy in al Anbar, I obtained a feeling that folks at higher levels are indeed taking a crack at these issues.

My question and the President Bush’s somewhat paraphrased answer follows. The meeting was on the record, but notes took the place of recording devices due to the sensitive nature of the video conference’s surroundings…

Read the whole thing.

***

N.Z. Bear was there, too, and reports. Check out our Hot Air interview with N.Z. here.